University of Virginia Library

A casual saying!
And yet it cost a life! They change the Guard!
I never hear that tramp of armed heels
But that black hour returns! Once more as then
The palace courts grow dark with frowning brows;
Around me stand the steel-clad mutinous Chiefs,
Each with drawn sword. Again I hear them cry,
‘We brook no more this female government:
Thy son shall rule; not thou!’ They hated me:—
A woman reigns not in a Gothic realm:
I stood too near thy throne. They hated me
Because I stayed their ravage on the poor.
That day the boy had struck his grey-haired tutor;
To the feasting chiefs herushed: denounced his wrongs:
The chiefs! 'Twas they who turned him 'gainst his Mother!
Thus to their insolent speech I made reply;
‘It is the strong rule, not the weakling rule,
Sirs, which ye hate. Theodoric, late your King,
Governs his grandson through his daughter's hand.’
They passed me with the boy. That hour mine eye
Fell on three daggers which beside me lay
Bought for my ladies from a Merchant Mede:
I held them up and spake: ‘Sirs, I impeach you
This day of treason 'gainst my son and me!
Your sins will taint my son: his own will slay him:
When that day comes, albeit I stand this hour
A queen deposed, those daggers there shall find you,
Lawfully sentenced by these lips this day,
Sentenced, though now the execution halts.’
They led him forth: he passed me without word:
They gave him foul ensample and he fell:
The wine-cup was his teacher, not his Mother.
His sixteenth birthday came: a step approached:
It was not his: a man drew near and spake:
‘The king's physicians say all hope is o'er!
Even now he dies.’ I rose from where I sat:
Rushed to his chamber. It was locked—their wont!
I took those daggers three. Three faithful men
I sent to where upon the kingdom's bound
Those three the foremost in that murder ruled:
On the third day they cumbered earth no longer.

Another day is past! Hail, evening breeze!
How strange a weight of sighs must load thy wings
Travelling man's world! They stifle not thy freshness!
Cool, cool this burning heart! They sent me here
Fearing my people would avenge my wrong,
They kept me here not stabbing me to kill,
Choked by yon mist. Its work is sure yet slow:
Unmannerly it seems to task their patience.
Justinian spake me fair yet will not aid me,
Much less that Emperor's Empress. Cassiodorus
Writes thus: ‘The men of death are on thy track.’
That sentence I forgot. I like it well:
Not these slow mists;—their daggers will restore me
Those whom I ne'er forget. A Christian true
Would say, ‘Will earlier give me to my God.’

I fear our Gothic Faith hath lacked a something;
Have thought at times those Catholics with their creed
Transcendant more than ours, their mystic rites
That seem to lift our earth so nigh to heaven,
Their friendly ways with Mary and God's Saints,
Were born beneath a happier star than we,
And on a soul of sweeter, silkier grain
Take the celestial impress. Arians we:
They that baptized our nation stamped it Arian:
That suits rough hearts. The ignorant cannot choose
'Twixt creeds: the faithful scarce can quit old friends—
My father failed. The imperial reign o'er earth
It may be is reserved for one who holds
His crown from Christ; believes He reigns in heaven.
I fear I never had a full devotion:
Yet this I sought; to live as God commands,
Bear bravely what He sends: and this I hope,
Death past, to meet my Sire—my Son—my Husband,
Meet them unstained. If my own blood should stain me
I pardon—'tis God's Law—my murderers.
—‘The Frank shall have the Empire, not the Goth:’
In death he spake it; and his word is true.